I thought SNL had an opportunity to do something interesting here
By revisiting all the characters from the late 80s/early 90s, they could have used that to comment on how everything has changed since then. For example:
* George HW Bush, widely mocked at the time, seems a model of sanity now;
* the Church Lady,…

That new popcorn restaurant
Got a lot of love in this episode, including an ad in the bla-bar. Sounds like a great place to go with friends!

Hey, whoah there Osborne
"Whoopi Goldberg and Sally Field. They were both enormously, like Alec…"

I'm out, and encourage you to join me
I agree with all the complaints above about this being a half-assed review at best. I really can't explain why they're not better, because Rabin is capable of beautiful, detailed 2000 word posts about George Strait or Hank Thompson, and then gives us this 591-word (I checked)…

It's also fairly similar to a plot on a NewsRadio episode called "Big Brother" (I think), where Matthew's Big Brother and Big Sister (Beth) start behaving like parents toward Matthew. Although that plot had a funny twist where Beth and the Big Brother hooked up, which Matthew found disturbing ("You're brother and…

The anti-anti-woman argument
I agree SATC is worth a serious appraisal, but this bothers me: "Nevertheless, I winced at the tone of many of the reviews and columns about the SATC movies, which used them as a cudgel against "modern women" in general, and against "chick flicks" in particular."

Hmm, I liked it
Or at least I don't remember hating it as, apparently, some do. I think it makes a nice companion piece with NewsRadio's "Lucky Burger" episode.

Choose your own adventure
Those books always started out with such a great premise — you can go back in time! you're exploring a volcano! — and ended with me dying in a crevasse.

No "My Two Dads"?
It was not a good show, as I recall, but it did have the virtue of the most disturbing premise for a sitcom: "Who knows who the real father is? Let's just assign custody to both of them!"

Male synchronized swimming
I don't know if Guest directed that video or just acted in it, but it's kind of a prototype for his Waiting for Guffman character.

Tidbits from Wikipedia
Did you know this was originally planned to star Charlie Sheen and Matthew Broderick and be directed by Ridley Scott? Or that Sports Center anchor Linda Cohn is a teller in one of the bank robbery scenes?

I probably stated that badly — I think it started out as a pretty heavy sit-com meta-commentary, and still has those moments, but has decided to go in a more dramatic, realistic direction, and it's that transition that has been bumpy.

Show, don't tell
I guess I'll place myself on the side that thinks this season has been okay, but not great, and it's not because the show has been too sentimental. I think it's a false dichotomy to say a show can either be funny or emotional, but not both. The Simpsons managed to do both, Cheers, too, Futurama,…

It's like clamming!
The sewer conversation summoned up a pretty horrific mental tableau.

Son of a gun we'll have big fun on the bayou tonight!
I never knew that was a quote from a song until I heard "Jambalaya" on AM radio years later: http://www.youtube.com/watc…

I'll just add that my opinion of the past few weeks' shows has diverged from Todd's. It's not that I think the show has become terrible, just that I don't get the effusive praise. The sentimental aspects have become very prominent, which is fine for a drama, but for a comedy strikes me as very dangerous. It may…

Poor Jason Adler
I loved the episode and the series, but I can't shake the feeling that the show short-changed Jason Adler. His death was a real tragedy, and it's not clear to me that the moral calculus favors Hank's side. A new airport on one side, the death of several people on the other side. I know Hank didn't…

Hank is … Frank Serpico
Loved Hank's undercover wear at the beginning of the episode. I always had a hard time imagining him as a cop, but as a turtleneck and stocking cap-wearing (in San Diego!) undercover guy, I can see it.

The Laughing Gnome
The first Bowie album I owned was a cassette tape of "The Laughing Gnome" that I inherited somehow from an older brother. It should be listed as somewhere _not_ to start with Bowie — it's an Alvin and the Chipmunks style duet with Bowie and a sped-up "gnome" voice: http://www.youtube.com/watc…

Being apart
One thing I liked about this episode was the way it showed how Hank and Britt need each other. If Britt had been around, he would have told Hank not to confront Gretchen with the info, and Hank might have warned Britt about proposing right at that moment.